GoDIG
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Minutes from the GoDIG meeting of March 3, 2007 at Tufts University
Present: Naomi Allen, State Library; Betty Febo and Jacqueline Fitzpatrick, Wellesley College; Gail Fithian, Boston Public Library; Connie Reik, Tufts; and Ralph Szymczak, Brandeis.
Barbara Preece was unable to attend our meeting, but Jennifer Varney phoned Gail and talked about what Barbara had been planning to discuss. Indiana University made the decision to list their titles older than 1976. [I’ve attached two documents about the Indiana proposal to these minutes—GF] Discussion Document and Guidelines.
The Consortium is considering a similar plan. Barbara was also planning to talk about all the time that the Consortium members have spent on cooperative purchases of databases.
Gail talked briefly about the remote storage facility to be available in 2-3 years once money is allocated to rehab the old Keyspan building in West Roxbury. This facility was purchased by the city of Boston and the refurbishing and maintenance will be funded with city money. A Reading Room would also be part of the facility.
Gail mentioned that BPL has been talking with Google about digitizing parts of the BPL collection, and has also been working with the Open Content Alliance to digitize various pre-1923 titles. Copyright issues are not a problem for titles dated before 1923, but OCA would be more conscious than Google of copyright issues with newer titles.
There was also talk among the attendees about GoDig members being responsible for maintaining certain SuDoc ranges, thus allowing other institutions to weed their collections. Betty Febo has talked to one of Wellesley’s digitech staffers about digitizing the Department of Labor titles on women in the 1940s during and after World War II. It has not really moved forward yet, but the Preservation Department has repaired many of the Women’s Bureau pieces (1910-1920) that had brittle pages. Gail wondered if the group could just ask each of the New England institutions which SuDoc area they would like to focus on, i.e., a depository with a strong collection of EPA documents might want to serve as the state repository for such material. Such arrangements would require the formal okay of library directors. Would there still be redundancies? Will both BPL and UMass/Amherst move ahead with light archive plans? If there is one (or maybe two?) light archives for documents in Massachusetts, would it then be unnecessary for institutions to commit to preserving and making accessible titles of specific agencies?
A discussion ensued about print vs. online engines. Brandeis owns the Hein legal product and is happy with it. Naomi Allen talked about the State Library’s LexisNexis product; the State Library is also interested in Westlaw. Betty urged her to trial both and discussed her reasons for preferring LexisNexis. Additionally, Betty notified the group that the new LN product will shepherdize all cases, not just those from the Supreme Court. This new feature will start in March and be up in August.
Gail shared news from Linda Johnson who was unable to join us because of the terrible road conditions in NH. As at many depositories, the trend at UNH has been that there are fewer questions, but that the questions now tend to be more complicated and time-consuming to answer. Linda, Thelma Thompson and the rest of the current department will maintain their specialty and will advise students by appointment, email, etc, but not through a separate reference desk. She is pleased with the change that will occur and says it will free up time to work more closely with users and to reach out to departments in ways they could not when they were staffing a service desk.
Linda went to ALA Mid-Winter and attended a program about e-government, with one of the main points being that the public is being sent in increasing numbers to local public libraries for forms and for help in completing these forms, particularly in situations such as Katrina. After the Katrina disaster public libraries were sometimes the only buildings left standing because they are built to hold larger weight loads. Linda also attended a MAGERT talk on maps with David Cobb from Harvard.
Both Betty & Connie will be attending the upcoming ACRL & ALA meetings. The centennial celebrations for the early agricultural colleges at UMass, UConn, & UNH were mentioned and Connie suggested that GPLNE could work on ideas for some of these celebrations.
Questions from the group: How did each Gov Docs Department answer the question on the ’05 Biennial Survey regarding willingness to store documents on their local servers. Betty and Ralph both answered No & Smallest Amount.
Did Lenny talk about a Light Archive being set up at UMass/ Amherst? Attendees who had been at the last UMass meeting thought he had.
Are we all receiving fewer maps? Yes
Will there be a return to Federal Depository assessments? Gail does not foresee a return to on-site visits by GPO staff from Washington, DC. The GPO is moving forward digitally. They have already invested millions. The agreement with NTIS to provide depositories with the full text of technical reports was mentioned. Connie and others felt that was a positive step. Gail said BPL is participating in the NTIS project.
What is the status of the Legacy Collection? No one really knows. Linda Johnson is on a committee working on this.
State Library Progress Report from Naomi: There is an ongoing deselection process [from 1997 forward]. The Massachusetts Acts and Resolves from 1960 on have been digitized. The Zimmer Index [index to select articles in 19th and 20th century local newspapers] is available online at the State Library’s web page.
Before the meeting closed, Betty passed around the member profiles which describe each depository’s collections and services. Betty asked for any changes to be noted by those in attendance. Any further corrections from those who missed the meeting should be sent to Betty. These profiles are available on the GoDig webpage
Notes taken by Jacqueline Fitzpatrick and Gail Fithian
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